Tag: Christianity

chasing mystery | chasing Jesus

We don’t follow someone because we think we have the best answer or the best adventure or because we know how to beat the antagonist in the story.

We follow someone because we believe he has something we do not.

When the disciples were called out of their busy, productive lives as fishermen and tax collectors and ordinaries, they said yes to a very mysterious man with an authoritative voice. They knew little about his mission or his history or his agenda, but they didn’t ask questions. They followed.

They chased the mystery that called them into following. They said yes before they knew all the answers about where to direct the clamoring children and how to calm a crowd. They said yes before they knew demons would flee when they spoke and before they knew entire towns would reject them as they shook the dust off their feet.

The disciples chased mystery as they chased Jesus, leaning in close for the next surprise to tumble off his lips. Each disciple knew that Jesus had access to something they did not and they must have believed that this knowledge was worth following, however crazy it seemed.

I love that they didn’t have the answers. I love that they learned as they followed and they followed with faith that the mysteries made sense.

I imagine the curious looks they gave each other when Jesus motioned for the children to come and when he held up wine to toast at the party and when he reached out to touch the leper and the blind man and the bleeding woman.

I imagine their shrugs and their puzzled stares and their visible decision to continue chasing this crazy man and the crazy mystery of his love on earth.

They didn’t have Paul’s letters or eye witness accounts or pounds of history books to corroborate oral histories.

I like that they kept saying yes, anyway.

I like that the disciples were fishermen and tax collectors and ordinary folks who kept saying yes to following the footsteps of a man who loved with the authority of heaven.

And I like that Jesus only needed their “Yes” to pull them into the mystery. Did they ever dream they would see the dead raised or demons cast out? Did they grow up hoping to someday throw a party with their Savior as a co-host?

They didn’t know the Greek and Hebrew way to decipher his movements, but they knew his movements because they were following him so closely.

I want to follow Jesus that way.

I want to say yes because I believe in what He is about and not because it makes sense. I want to get pulled into the mystery in a way that makes my eyebrows shoot into my hairline – a way that makes me ask, “Is this the right thing?”

There is mystery and magic bound up in the monotony of the everyday and there is only one person we can follow to spook it out from underneath the moldy rocks.

When mystery is spooked out from under moldy rocks it might seem like it had a better life hidden underneath. It might seem like a bad idea to lift up the rock at all. It might not be reasonable or pleasant or comfortable, but mystery is surprising in that way.

Sometimes all of our knowledge makes mystery look very undesirable and we end up missing out on that very beautiful, very unique thing that captured the spirits of those disciples.

I want to follow Jesus when He lifts up rocks that look fine where they are. I want to be next to him when he walks through closed doors and when he reaches out to touch the ugliness.

I want to follow Jesus because He is what I am not – He is the best answer, the best adventure and the best way to beat the antagonist fighting for sway on my soul.
Posted on by Caroline 2

dawn and dusk

My favorite time of day changes as the day wakes up and walks with me. Generally, just after lunch has never received the title and perhaps also late morning, but I can’t tell you for certain. I just know that there are moments when I glance up from whatever I’m doing – walking, reading, working, thinking – and I’m hit between the eyes with wonder.

Dawn and dusk are regular wonder hits in my life.

When the blue-grey morning sky gives way to pink-peach tones, the fuzzy coming together on the horizon makes me want to set my day’s destination to “first star on the right and straight on ’til morning” with Peter Pan.

Do you know the feeling? The feeling of wonder?

Dawn and dusk have that effect on me, so this morning I took a good, long pause to watch the warm colors bloom into the grey. I watched them fuzz together and then the gray get swallowed up. And as I squinted at the sun on my morning walk, I delighted in its fuzzy beginnings hours earlier. I smiled at the way the sun had introduced itself to this day quietly and then quickly took over the sky with bold rays.

I hope I can keep this feeling of wonder until dusk when it happens in reverse. Maybe it will help to reflect on this devotional from Solid Joys, “Christ is Like Sunlight” where John Piper explains Hebrews 1:3,

“He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.”

Piper writes, “Jesus relates to God the way radiance relates to glory, or the way the rays of sunlight relate to the sun.” And so, it is this relationship that is inspiring wonder in my favorite times of day.

Posted on by Caroline 0

always believing

We can be all kinds of emotional. All kinds – nervous, joyful, sad, fearful – all kinds. It seems like mine have run the gamut here in NYC. I can sink in sadness and in the very next moment be heaped in hope. They are all mixed up here in NYC; maybe emotions are mixed up everywhere.

But in every kind of emotion we must be always believing.

I think this is taking deep root in the soil of my soul these days and certainly as I read the lectionary reading this morning from Psalm 119.

I have chosen the way of faithfulness;
I set your rules before me.
I cling to your testimonies, O Lord;
let me not be put to shame!
I will run in the way of your commandments
when you enlarge my heart! (Psalm 119:30-32, ESV)

I love to read the conviction in David’s declarations, because I know he was an emotional guy and he had every right to be emotional. Chased by death and failing kingdoms and family matters and desert armies, David lived the kind of life that seemed to warrant fist shaking at the sky.

But inside his mixed up emotions, David chose the way of faithfulness. Because he was not helpless against the affections of his heart. David set the Lord’s rules before him and clung to the Lord’s testimonies.

In choosing and doing these things, David is actively believing that this is the best way to move forward with mixed emotions.

Sunk in sadness or heaped in hope, David chose to run in the way of the Lord’s commandments. I can almost hear the pulse of his feet pounding the desert path in the direction of the Lord’s commandments. It sounds strange, even as a word picture. Why would he run in the direction of commandments – in the direction of something that appears to fix his feet in one place? Why would David love the Lord’s rules that seem to restrict instead of set free?

Running is freedom, at least it seems so to me. It means throwing off hindrances and making steady progress in a particular direction. And David is running in the direction of the Lord’s commands because freedom gives birth to freedom. The Lord enlarged the heart that powered his running feet and with his freedom he ran in the direction of faithfulness. David believe that the Lord would keep His promises and that being near to the Lord was the best destination, the best lifestyle, the best routine – that meant being near to His commands.

David knew inside his heart of mixed emotions that the Lord’s commands were not a straight jacket but a mysterious wardrobe where marvelous things were hidden. David believed the Lord’s commands would grant him more freedom than anything the world could promise him.

The Lord granted David freedom to run and with that freedom, David ran in the direction of most delight – the way of pleasing the Freedom Giver.

I can’t imagine experiencing all the range of emotions tangled up inside David’s heart while he was hidden in caves or castles or closets. But I do know where he found strength when he was sunk with sadness or heaped with hope. He found strength as the Lord grew his heart and he ran in the way of faithfulness.

He chose to chase the mysteries of the Lord’s commands because He wanted to please the Freedom Giver… and because (I think) he knew that the most joy in this life would be found running toward and not away from God’s gracious constraints.

In every kind of emotion, God grants the grace that we can be always believing.
Posted on by Caroline 0

if my heart wrote my soul a telegram

This is, ahem, very personal. If that makes you uncomfortable, you might want to read something else today.

Remember in the Sound of Music when Leisl tells Rolfe about the telegram she would write him as they exchange teenage love declarations in the gazebo? She started with, “Dear Rolfe (stop)” and then he called her a baby.

If my heart wrote my soul a telegram yesterday, it went something like this:

I have two fears (stop)

I wasn’t prepared to feel what I felt or to feel it so intensely. But, the telegram didn’t get sorted until about 11:00 pm last night when I finally stopped the repetitive rhythm.

Yesterday, Patrick and I trekked up to the INHABIT conference on the Upper West Side, sponsored by the International Arts Movement. We listened to plenary speakers and attended breakout sessions with several hundred other folks from across the country who care about the ways art intersects with faith and how that translates into culture care.

And in the middle of all the note-scrawling and introductions and processing, I realized I had never invited someone into this space before. This very metaphysical, very precious and precarious space I had tucked deep away where it couldn’t get broken.

Maybe it’s what a comic book junkie feels at a comic book convention or what a car enthusiast feels at a car show or a musician feels about the symphony. I know I’m not the only one who feels uniquely at home in a very unhome-like space because I am surrounded by people who speak the same language.

This is what I feel when I pack my notebooks and pens, when I check in at registration, when I listen to the philosophical implications of architectural structures and the words communicated through a brick used in its traditional function or adapted for a new purpose. This is what I feel when I am around people asking questions about beauty and meaning and longing – people who wrestle and wander and wonder because it feels right to do so.

Eric Liddell’s painful conclusion in “Chariots of Fire” paints well the picture of this affection and deep delight, “God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.”

I’m not sure how exactly God made me – I am not fast like Eric Liddell, nor am I particularly brilliant in a profession, nor am I an established or even struggling artist.

I just know that when I work the muscles in my brain and respond with the muscles in my heart and typing fingertips, I feel His pleasure. I feel His pleasure in a strange and not altogether happy way, but in a way that I do not feel anywhere else. There is a familial comfort in knowing that other people want to use the same language, to plumb the same depths, to wrestle the same lions – believing it is a worthy pursuit and even a pursuit that reflects and delights our Creator.

These types of gatherings have been home to me for years and there are few people who share the same affinity. But that’s never mattered before. I do not expect people to understand this language and I’ve learned to filter my excitement and my conclusions and my muddled processing.

But yesterday, the fear-filled telegrams pushed up behind my eyes. I felt a bit like my self-confident exterior got cracked like an egg and all my fear dripped out. So, I have two fears.

I am afraid of being misunderstood.
I am also afraid of being dull.

I am afraid that my love for beauty and questions and doubts and language and words (and all those things I have hidden in a precious and precarious place) will not make sense to the person I love the most. I am afraid words won’t come and when they do, that they will tumble out incoherently.

I am also afraid that my rambling and circular processing and childilke chasing will make my favorite person bored. I am afraid he will not enjoy the moment in a superlative way and that his lesser enjoying will be my fault.

I am not saying this is rational, I am just saying this was the telegram that I was finally able to communicate to Patrick last night after we rode his motorcycle out of Manhattan. Between sighs and frequent pauses in our late night, neighborhood pizza joint, I tried to explain that I didn’t need him to love what I love or to understand why this language feels like home. I explained that I didn’t need him to be someone who loves conferences and note-taking and the cultural implications of the functionally changing purpose of bricks.

I just don’t want to feel crazy.

I just want so much for him to experience the superlative delight I feel when I’m around this language. Whatever that is for him, I want to say yes to it. Part of what pained me yesterday was thinking that I had asked him to live less in the full delight God prepared.

In his typical and patient way, he told me I wasn’t crazy. He really said a lot more, but I think I just needed to hear that I wasn’t crazy and that I hadn’t ruined his day by making mine great.

I didn’t expect to learn this lesson along the way of love. I really didn’t expect to struggle so sincerely, but I guess I didn’t know how precious or precarious this language was to me.

And in this lesson learning, I am bending to the beauty of Christ’s love. Alone, I can hide things and keep them safely hidden. Alone, I can pretend my vulnerabilities are transparent and my guard is appropriate. But in love, I can see how tenderly Christ completes my affections – how perfectly he understands my needs and how patiently he provides.

I did not know my soul required this kind of care and I was overwhelmed yesterday when I realized Christ has been caring for me in this way all along.

As I receive love (by way of opening up my hidden spaces), I can boldly believe it casts out fears.

Two fears is too few, but it was the number needing cast out yesterday and I believe Christ is able. Not only that He is able, but that He promised to be the One who casts out. I believe that.

I am so thankful for these hard lessons, for these painful purgings of what I didn’t know was hidden.

My uncle sent me the above song today, a song I have returned to when I need a reminder of Christ’s sufficiency. Today was a beautiful day to be reminded.

Posted on by Caroline 1

same park, same path, different heart

The day was not more or less beautiful. The park was not more or less packed.

The children played soccer under the same sun’s evening glow, the same moving mass of strangers ran in circles around the same lake, the same warmth burst out from the tips of trees and into the same cool, autumn air.

Everything about my run was the same, except that it was different.

I rounded the curve last night on the East side when it starts to slope down and I realized a smile had stretched across my face. It was a facial expression that defines stupid grin and it was amplified by my oogly eyes marveling at the sky. For the entire steady slope, I grinned and oogled the sky.

I smiled at all the strangers who had made me feel uneasy and emotional a few days before, but I thought my delight might be entertaining (if they create stories in their minds about strangers like I do). I befriended one lady, in a runner’s world kind of way. She was about my height with a similar stride and a purple headband. We ran comfortably side by side and I imagined her story until she sped on ahead around the south curve (confirming my prediction after seeing her serious running tight/skirt combo and determined arm swing).

Everything was the same, but my heart was different.

I was not afraid.

I felt like Kevin from Home Alone when he opens the front door to his empty home and yells to the Christmas darkness, “Hey! I’m not afraid anymore! Do you hear me? I’m not afraid anymore!”

To get empty of fear is liberating, but only if I am getting filled up with something else. Otherwise I’m just yelling at darkness and hoping my endorphins will keep pumping boldness into my blood. The emptiness has to be displaced – the fear has to be replaced by something strong enough to shove it beyond the bounds of influence.

Christ got empty. He emptied Himself so that we could be emptied of emptiness – emptied of that vacancy we feel when fear screams out from our insides.

My salvation has pushed emptiness out and fear with it. Hope has displaced strife and faith has removed worry. I am not afraid anymore because I believe the fullness of Christ is pushing against and spilling beyond my boundaries.

I am not afraid of missing out. I am not afraid of being a stranger. I am not afraid of hugging this city when it doesn’t hug me back. I am not afraid of being unknown. I am not afraid.

I am not afraid because Christ emptied my fear when He got empty.

Posted on by Caroline 0

I shall not want

It happened yesterday in Prospect Park – when I was rounding the bend down the slope, right after I stopped to take a picture of the lake. The Saturday children’s soccer games were in the middle of playful competition on the fields, various groups clustered around pastel balloons for birthday parties, and there was a small gathering who had followed hand-painted wooden signs down a slight slope to celebrate a wedding.

The colors were turning, but soft like a whisper. The sun was making warm paths of light to reach the turning leaves on the opposite side of the lake.

I got emotional.

I suppose that isn’t surprising, given my emotional history and over-dramatization of most events, at least for story’s sake. But it did surprise me and I had to close my eyes for a few paces to collect myself.

Have you ever stretched out your fingers into rays of sunlight? All the mystery of those rays reaching us, dancing on our fingertips, evading our capture – it normally makes me marvel. How is it that the light that warms our faces comes from a gigantic spherical furnace? How is it that it gets as far as earth and remains at the perfect distance to sustain life? How is it?

Normally, rays of light and soccer games and birthday parties and wedding celebrations make me marvel, but yesterday they made me emotional. I guess because I couldn’t hold the light or be in the soccer game or sit with the ladies in lawn chairs or wave a flag at the wedding.

I felt very small and very disconnected – like knowing and being known here is too distant a thing to reach.

The faces I met – on bikes and in strollers and in road weary running shoes – I did not know, not a single one. Commotion is not hard to come by in this city and with it the potential that I am missing out on something beautiful. Festivals, neighborhood parties, service events, art openings – commotion and opportunity and all this potential for beautiful make me acutely aware when I am outside and unattached.

This is not my city, yet. And it took me a while to shake the feelings last night or to do more than resolve the feelings away. Sometimes it is good to feel what you feel – to step into it fully and make peace with the way it got tangled inside.

This morning, I have different eyes to see the shortness in my chest for what it was: fear.

Today I’ll reach out and let the same sun dance on my fingertips, but I will choose to marvel because I have a God who keeps His promises. I know a God who is my Savior and who has promised to provide and protect and preserve these bones.

I shall not want.
Posted on by Caroline 0

God’s grace in the taste of warmed peaches

I’ll spare you the details.

Yes, because the details look like a swollen face and dental office tears. I’ll spare you those, because that isn’t what greased my gears these past couple days. I haven’t written because my head felt like a fire breathing dragon in a breath holding contest. Something like that, anyway. So, I didn’t think my words would come out appropriately or coherently or worthy of my small readership (I really do think of you).

Do you want to know what has been marvelous about these past couple days? Autumn.

I think (in my more romantic moments) that Autumn is the heavenly concoction God cooked up to especially delight our senses. Just when we got used to deep green leaves and bright sunshine and bare shoulders, Creation shrugs into a different set of smells and sights and rhythms.

I love to think of God’s delight as Christ holds the universe together (Hebrews 1:3). He doesn’t just hold things as they are, though he could do that and it would still be miraculous. He holds things together and delights to play symphonies and paint tapestries and breathe seasons into reality.

Can you believe His great grace to us – that we get to watch as He traces His majesty into the sky and as He paints Autumn into the trees?

It is not easy to be sick in a new city. But His grace is like a gusty Autumn wind – it’ll meet you in a surprise attack and leave you laughing.

His grace looked like my sister ordering soup from a thousand miles away. It looked like making stovetop apples and lentil stew with my roommate. It looked like an opera with an old friend. It looked like the understanding of my coworkers. It looked like new friends checking in and referring an amazing dentist. His grace looked like the crisp breeze under my chin and the taste of warmed peaches in my morning oatmeal.

Can God’s grace be the taste of warmed peaches? Yes.

Yes, sometimes God’s grace to us and the ways He keeps His promise to protect and provide is surprisingly simple.

Because caring for His creation is not complicated, to Him anyway. He knows what will delight my heart and what will sustain my spirit. He knows because He made me and He knows what it means for His grace to be uniquely enough for my situation.

Of course, the best sufficiency is always more of Christ Himself. But I’m going to be honest. It was hard to make my swollen face focus on anything philosophical. So, I am thankful that in those moments Christ was made known to me in these other ways.

And as we receive grace we fight to believe that God is good to keep giving it because He is a promise keeper.

And He has promised more grace.

 

Posted on by Caroline 0

why communion makes me weepy

I used to be ashamed at the tears squeezing out the corners of my eyes when I walked up to take communion. I used to think I was too much removed from those summer camp experiences where tears and emotions seemed more appropriate. I used to think getting teary-eyed at the communion table would reveal some of the messy layers of my life I try to keep hidden – the less tidy and more sinful layers.

Sometimes I still try to blink away the emotion. I’ll try to focus on something other than the weight of my eternal destiny and the Savior who stepped in to change my course. Tonight, I let the tears slip down as I walked up the aisle.

I sang along to “Jesus Paid it All” in a soft murmur, believing every word because sin had left a crimson stain but He washed it white as snow.

And that’s a miracle.

It’s okay to get emotional when unbelievable things happen and it’s okay to have that emotion on a weekly basis. Because my salvation doesn’t make any sense.

When I take the bread and drink the wine, proclaiming Christ’s death until He comes again, I am believing that His death was sufficient to cover my sin. I am believing Christ as my substitute and that He ransomed my soul from the pit of emptiness by putting Himself inside that pit.

Unbelievable.

It isn’t a long walk between the wooden pews to the front of the church, but it’s long enough. The upright bass, piano, and saxophones accompanied my reflection and the tears were persistent.

I hear the Savior say,
“Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.”

There’s no good reason for this weak child to find or be found, but God called my heart out of darkness into light. And so the short walk before I rip off the bread and drink the wine from the cup is full of ways I’m not worthy, ways I’m overwhelmed by God’s gift.

My tears may sound like nonsense, but I suppose to my heart it is the opposite. I am not sad for my salvation, just overwhelmed by it – by the bigness of it and the unlikeliness of it.

The walk back to my wooden pew after that little feast is always a beautiful celebration. I am always breathing deep sighs and lifting up my chin because as weighty as that communion dinner is, His grace is weightier still. Anything I may have brought up with me – shame or guilt or fear or doubt – He already covered in the sacrifice on the cross and I am free of it.

I get weepy at communion. It’s just a thing that happens every Sunday. Sometimes I try to hide it and blink it away, but other times I let those little tears roll because communion is a an emotional encounter.

Posted on by Caroline 3

ordinary glory | mysterious miracle

There is nothing singularly spectacular about this Saturday, but that makes the mystery of all its ordinary glory so much more beautiful.

This ordinary glory is a mysterious miracle.

The clouds broke open early, uncertain of whether to hover or hibernate into the autumn wind. I still can’t figure out the morning rhythms – of the few footsteps that pound the city pavement in the early weekend hours. Maybe it’s because the pavement gets such a beating in the Monday – Friday traffic and the millions of feet have declared moratorium for Saturday and Sunday.

But I don’t mind the quiet traffic and few pedestrians. I don’t mind that I can hear the wind and appreciate the rustle of autumn leaves. I don’t mind that I can sit for over an hour in my favorite bagel place with no one crowding me out of my seat.

Because the most ordinary things – the man in full red track suit with a mini boombox walking on Nostrand Avenue, the little child making eyes at me inside Lula Bagel Cafe, the successful scavenging for a free bed with my adorable roommate, the spontaneous errands with new friends who prefer the windows rolled down, the swapping of life stories over tacos and margaritas – the most ordinary things are all mysterious miracles.

Yes, there are defeated and damaged days in this busy-hungry place, but there are also those days (like today) that stretch out in ordinary miracles. They are strung together like garland, wrapped around slow moving hours you can feel through your fingers as you ride the wind outside the car window.

Ordinary moments.

I call them miracles and perhaps I am too cavalier with the term. Perhaps “miracle” is a word that should be guarded and ordered and sequestered for more holy conversation. I’m not sure.

I just know that it feels miraculous to live today. It feels like a slice of heaven to walk and breathe and stretch out my living deep into this Saturday as I sip espresso and plan the evening’s activities. It feels like an impossible gift when the sunlight hits my cheekbones and when a laugh escapes my lips. The impossibility of this day – even the ordinariness of breathing in and out – is enough of a miracle to me.

And so, I walk and breathe and stretch out my living tonight, in the impossible and ordinary crisp Autumn air. I fill up my lungs with everything regular and I know that there is nothing ordinary about life.

The breath in my bones is a testimony, a moving monument constructed so that I remember my Creator.
Posted on by Caroline 4

why we want to hide away

I know I’m pushing it… using the “we” in reference to myself inside the group called “New Yorkers.” I’m presuming a lot at this point, fresh off the Midwest-is-best plane and barely two months new in this metropolis. But, if you would, just let me for this one post.

I think I’m starting to understand why there are fewer apartment parties and more occasional, casual gatherings.

New Yorkers (natives and transplants) talk about plans in extremely vague and non-committal terms. Inevitably, every New Yorker has had a “really rough week” and it’s not just a line. It’s legitimate. This is a crazy place and the public transportation gives you plenty of time to ruminate over all the week’s awry events. In addition to all the people involved in your personal and work life, the sheer number of faces you encounter in any given day pushes anyone (no matter how social or strong) into survival mode.

How do I keep my head above water?

Never mind the gallery showings and premieres and benefit galas, how do I stay alive without going crazy? It’s true everywhere, but it feels truer here in New York, where the options are like a million menus of different languages shoved under your chin while a million different people wait for you to make your decision.

Before I moved here, I listened to a sermon by Tim Keller on living for the city – intentionally loving and pouring into the urban space because it is an open door in a way other places are not. A native Midwesterner and natural potluck lover, intentionally loving a city makes sense. Hosting and greeting neighbors and being busy makes sense.

But, this is overload.

I’m not saying it’s impossible, I’m just saying I think I understand why we want to hideaway. I get why hosting is hard. I am tempted to say the same “it’s been a rough week” to anyone who asks me to hang out this weekend. I am tempted to slide into vague, non-committal assurances when plans come up. I am tempted to be selfish because it feels more like preservation.

So, now I’ll believe even this temptation is not too much. There is room and space and mental energy to host and love and pour out intentional service into a city that sometimes tries to sap my strength. I’ll pray my heart believes what I know is true when I want to hide away.

Posted on by Caroline 0